Page 22 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“Rebel needs medical attention.” I gesture toward her cell, where she’s slumped against the wall. “Set her arm, give her antibiotics. Please. She’ll die from infection if?—”

“Perform first, rewards after.” Malfor’s voice turns sickeningly sweet, the tone one might use with a trained animal. “That’s how this works. You give me results, and your friend gets medical care. You delay, she suffers. Simple cause and effect.”

“She can’t wait that long. The bone?—”

“Is an excellent motivator.” He cuts me off, eyes glittering with something beyond cruelty—a clinical fascination with our pain. “Work quickly, work well, and perhaps she’ll keep that arm. Fail me, and infection will be the least of her concerns.”

Rage burns white hot behind my eyes, so intense my vision blurs at the edges. This man, in his expensive, yet rumpled, clothes, with his educated voice, reducing us to experiments, to leverage. The scientist in me wants to explain the progression of sepsis, the inevitability of tissue death, but the words die in my throat. He knows. He just doesn’t care.

“Time is wasting, Miss Collins.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Every minute you spend arguing is another minutecloser to septic shock. For a physicist, your grasp of biological timeframes seems—lacking.”

Metal groans as my cell door unlocks. The sound reverberates through bone and tissue, settling into my marrow. One thought crystallizes through the fog of fear—Rebel’s arm, the bone fragments pressing against skin, the infection that’s inevitable without treatment.

“Her arm needs to be set.” My words scrape against raw vocal cords as I point toward Rebel’s cell. “I’ll do it. I’ll build your network. Whatever you want. But please, her arm needs medical attention now.”

My voice cracks, pride dissolving in the face of Rebel’s agony. “You can see the bone. She’ll die from sepsis before I can finish your work. Please. I’m begging you.”

“I believe I was clear.” Malfor’s voice drops to a dangerous softness. “Work first. Rewards after. No negotiations.”

He thumbs the remote without warning. Five bodies hit the ground simultaneously. The sound of Rebel’s broken arm striking concrete cuts through the symphony of agony—wet snap followed by guttural howl that doesn’t sound human.

“Stop!” The word tears from my throat, stripping tissue raw.

Malfor releases the button, tilting his head like a bird examining a particularly interesting insect. The screaming stops, replaced by ragged breathing and soft whimpers.

“You want to help your friend?” Malfor steps close enough that his breath warms my face, mint and coffee masking something rotten underneath. “Then work. Cooperate. The sooner you give me what I need, the sooner everyone gets whattheyneed.”

“I told you not to argue with me.” His voice remains conversational, as though discussing weather rather than torture. “These are the consequences of questioning myinstructions. Do you understand the rules now, Miss Collins? Or do I need to provide another demonstration?”

He hovers his thumb over the remote again, eyebrows raised in polite inquiry.

My legs wobble as I step into the corridor, muscles liquefied by fear and lingering pain. “No, you don’t need to. I’ll comply.”

“Good girl.” The words land like a boot on my chest, his tone dripping with patronizing satisfaction. “We finally understand each other. Dr. Elkin and Dr. Rafeeq don’t have time to waste. Neither do you.”

Guards materialize on either side of me, close enough that their body heat radiates against my skin, their weapons cold against my ribs. At the corridor’s far end, Stitch walks away between her own escorts, head high despite everything.

Our eyes connect across the distance—hers narrowed, calculating, certain. One blink. Deliberate. The message burns between us: remember your training, remember who you are.

The hallway stretches before me in endless white, security doors punctuating the path at measured intervals. My brain struggles to map our route—left turn, right turn, another left—but sedatives still cloud my thoughts, fragmented memories slipping away like smoke. The guards maintain absolute silence, their breathing the only proof they’re human.

We halt before a reinforced door marked with a keypad. One scientist—older, gray-haired, with wire-rimmed glasses—punches in a six-digit code, his fingers casting shadows under the harsh fluorescents. The door whispers open on pneumatic hinges.

Cold air slaps my face as we enter the lab. The temperature drop raises goosebumps along my arms, deliberate atmospheric control to keep equipment stable. Antiseptic and electronics fill my nostrils—hot silicon, solder, the acrid scent of new circuit boards. Three terminals line the far wall, screens pulsing withcode I recognize instantly—my algorithms, my formulas, my life’s work twisted into weapons.

A steel table dominates the center, littered with components that tighten my throat—motherboards, wiring harnesses, drone chassis components, power cells. Pieces of a puzzle designed to kill.

The scientists move to workstations without acknowledging my presence, backs turned as they tap at keyboards and adjust equipment. Then the older one turns—Dr. Elkin, based on his ID badge, revealing a face that might belong to a kind professor in another reality. Gray temples, laugh lines around his eyes, hands that have spent decades manipulating delicate equipment.

“We were told you might be difficult.” He removes his glasses, polishing them with a microfiber cloth pulled from his pocket.

As he tilts his head, the high collar of his lab coat shifts, revealing a metal band identical to mine circling his throat. His eyes meet mine, a flash of shared understanding passing between us.

“Don’t be.” His voice drops lower, almost a whisper. “It won’t help anyone, least of all your friends. Or mine.”

The realization hits me like a cold wave of clarity—these scientists aren’t willing collaborators. They’re prisoners too, collared and controlled just like us. Different cell, same cage.

My collar pulses once against my throat, a phantom finger tracing my carotid artery. The guards take position by the door, weapons loose in practiced hands, expressions bored behind tactical glasses.